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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26878138">depravity and mapo tofu</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/avatarkadaj/pseuds/avatarkadaj'>avatarkadaj</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Fate/Zero, Fate/stay night &amp; Related Fandoms</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alcohol, Catholic Guilt, Choking Fantasy, Choking Kink, Crack Treated Seriously, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Kirei Kotomine Is His Own Warning, Other, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, S&amp;M, Sadism, Suicide by a Minor Character, snuff fantasy</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 20:13:28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,516</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26878138</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/avatarkadaj/pseuds/avatarkadaj</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>I joked that if Kirei decided to become a Dominant after his wife died instead of descending into Catholic guilt and religious trauma maybe all of the bad shit in fate/zero and fate/stay night could have been avoided. And then I decided to actually write it with the bonus of he runs his own mapo tofu cafe/S&amp;M club in Fuyuki. This is crack treated seriously.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>depravity and mapo tofu</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This fandom may be dead by my angst and thirst for Kirei is not. I attempt to be funny throughout this except I am not that witty and comedy isn't my forte, angst and smut are. So if you like themes like "(dark) kink as therapy" and "working through religious trauma", you have come to the right place.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Sunlight filtered through the blinds into the cafe, bright and early. The light was soft as it shone across polished tables and swept floors, pristine menu boards and across the counter where the register sat, till open as the owner counted the cash. Just the quiet sound of paper against paper as he counted it and his own breathing at this hour. He glanced up at the clock. Business started in an hour and he was already almost done.</p><p>He was nothing if not efficient. </p><p>Finishing the opening tasks, he leaned with his back against the counter with a sigh. Like a habit, a compulsion, he reached up and fiddled with the rosary around his neck, contemplating. He slid his gaze over to the black partitions separating the cafe front from the back room, the portion that was only open to adult patrons after nine p.m.. He made a soft sound like it wanted to be a laugh but wasn’t quite there. </p><p>It was sacrilegious, truly, to run an S&amp;M dungeon that was masqueraded as a standard, casual mapo tofu cafe, while also fronting as a holy man, a devout child of God. </p><p>He wondered how funny life was to turn out this way. How does someone end up like him? Where did his divine path go astray? </p><p>Oh, yes. When his wife died. </p><hr/><p>Really, it was probably farther back than that but it <em> really </em> went downhill after he married Claudia. Their marriage had always been a farce and sex with her was terrible. That wasn’t her fault though, and it wasn’t like he told her as much. Kirei <em> had </em>been raised with manners. </p><p>Claudia was a very nice woman, saintly even, despite her illness and despite... everything about him. He was aloof and quiet and devoted to something other than her -- masquerading his degeneracy with pious servitude -- and still she loved him. (He wasn’t sure what it was about him that she loved; like his father, probably just the things he was capable of and not any part of his actual self. He wondered if deep down she was a masochist, if she knew the things he thought about.) </p><p>A combination of her illness being terminal and the fact that he could only achieve any sort of satisfaction was by imagining him strangling her in their marital bed meant that they only produced one child. That child was what his father would have called <em> beautiful, </em> the way he wanted Kirei to be <em> beautiful.  </em></p><p>They both were, and that just made him angry. A perfect wife and a perfect daughter, who loved him so wholesomely. He wasn’t sure his little girl could see he was rotten and empty to his very core -- children did have some rather supernatural senses at times -- but he knew his wife did. </p><p><em> That was okay, </em> according to her. <em> I can fix you. I believe there’s good in you, too. Good in all of God’s children.  </em></p><p>But there wasn’t. There really wasn’t. </p><p>The more they failed to fix him, the more unhappy they became with his lack of smiles and warmth, <em> that </em>is what made him feel good. When his wife cried in agony over the pain of her disease, while he couldn’t do much in any sense to help her, that is what he found joy in. </p><p>Kirei knew it was wrong. He had always <em> known </em>something was wrong with him. He had tried everything to stop. He had tried every method he could think of to try to fix himself -- he tried slashing his skin open and bleeding out, he had tried starving himself until he nearly blacked out, tried on one memorable occasion to break his own bones. </p><p>He was rewarded with talks of his <em> piety, </em> with his <em> understanding </em> of atonement for sins. He had been such a <em> smart and precocious boy. </em> He was Risei’s <em> beautiful son, </em>so perfect and aware, so understanding of the scriptures that took adults so long to understand.</p><p>It made him want to laugh. </p><p>They had no idea. They had no idea he was trying to punish himself for not being <em> good. </em> That he was trying to fix the darkness inside him. They didn’t know about bandaging his own wounds and breaking knuckles all trying to find out <em> why.  </em></p><p>He prayed often, as low as one could sit, and asked over and over. </p><p>Why?</p><p>Why make someone like him? Why make a mistake like this?</p><p>And after every method, his last ditch effort was to try to have a family. He married Claudia and together, after a lot of effort, produced Caren -- because isn’t that what every man wanted? A wife and kids and to settle down and eventually die with a legacy to leave behind? </p><p>Every man but him, he supposed. He doesn’t really feel anything for them. </p><p>She had tried her best -- God how she had tried -- to help him, but he was beyond any saving grace. She was kind and loving and understanding, never once judged him, and for that he owed her a goodbye before killing himself far from their home. </p><p>(He would leave it to her to explain it to Caren, clearly, she was better at being a loving mother than he ever could be at a father.) </p><p>He remembered it very clearly. He had forgotten a lot about her, what she looked like before death, the usual sound of her voice, but he did remember this.</p><p>Claudia lay in her hospital bed, breathing so shallow and soft. It hardly even stirred the blanket that covered her body, thin and weak and so very breakable. It was early in the morning, the first rays of dawn’s light shining upon her face. It highlighted the white of her hair, the peaks of her cheekbones, making more apparent the hollows under them. She turned to him, smiling at him through the pain, and her visible eye was so soft, despite the deep purple of sleeplessness underneath. </p><p>It was one of the only times he considered her <em> beautiful </em>the way his father considered a freshly bloomed rose beautiful. </p><p>“Kirei,” she had said softly, extending a hand out to him to beckon him closer. </p><p>He had walked closer, knelt by her side and held her hand like a rosary in prayer. It was so small and bony in his hands. He could have broken it easily. </p><p>“I could not love you,” he had said simply. There was no other way to put it. </p><p>Perhaps he should have apologized for making an experiment out of her and Caren. But she would have known that already, and had already forgiven him. She was a saint like that. So he said nothing more. </p><p>Her eyes looked so sure but sad. She didn’t believe that at all. She believed everyone could love and be loved. She knew he loved her. He had to. Husbands loved their wives and their children. </p><p>She shook her head. “No, Kirei, you do love me.” </p><p>She was dying anyway. She knew this. They all did. </p><p>It didn’t make her next actions less drastic. </p><p>Claudia plunged a syringe of morphine into her veins, flooding her system with enough to overdose in one shot. She watched him as she did it; she hardly felt a thing. </p><p>Kirei could see she was dying right before him, that she was finally ending it after two years of suffering at his side. It should disturb him, it should upset him. </p><p>It does, but not for the reason she thought. </p><p>She was dying so peacefully, at her own hands, mercifully. He had wanted to do it. He had wanted to smother her, pressing a hand over her mouth and nose and another around her throat. He wanted her to thrash and feebly attempt to fight him and he wanted it to <em> hurt.  </em></p><p>Tears had streamed down his face before he could stop them, before he knew they were happening. He couldn’t remember crying before now; he didn’t really know what to expect when the stinging sensation at the corners of his eyes started.</p><p>As her heart rate slowed and she could distantly hear the monitors squealing for help and the beeping incessantly around her, she felt peace. He was crying. Kirei did love her. Kirei was human. </p><p>She had smiled at him. “See, you do love me. You’re crying, Kirei. You do have feelings for me in your heart.”</p><p>Kirei remembered he felt his chest seizing and was distantly aware of the pathetic noises he must have been making as his tears cloud his vision. He had dropped his head to press against her hand as the monitor screamed louder, a single pitch as her heart stopped. </p><p>Even the doctors thought he was a grieving, distressed husband when they finally rushed in and saw she’s already gone. They thought he must have been in too much shock to say a word when he stood and brushed aside anyone who attempted to speak to him. </p><p>All he thought about was <em> I wanted to be the one to kill her.  </em></p><hr/><p>After that, it got a little... fuzzy. </p><p>He knew a few things for certain; things like Caren being released into the custody of Claudia’s relatives, as he was an unfit parent. He was surely evil but not enough to fail to parent an innocent little girl</p><p>But he found himself in Tokyo a while after her death. </p><p>He was sure it wasn’t too suspicious, fleeing like that. People did crazy things in their grief, was his guess. Why Tokyo, he wasn’t sure. Perhaps someone won’t notice one more person in the biggest megacity in the world. </p><p>He doesn’t remember how he got here or what his plan for being here was. Maybe he intended on going through with killing himself in a city where no one cared about him, that seemed fitting.  In hindsight, it was just empty void feelings and darkness, days blurring into nothing. For a while, he didn’t even pray. Surely there was a God, but not one for him. God couldn’t love someone as evil as he was. </p><p>So he decided to ignore the clearly magical insignia that printed itself on the back of his hand -- he didn’t <em> care </em> about what mystical thing it could be, he was <em> done </em>with that part of life -- all of the teachings and the Executor title and religious titles in general. Whatever it was wouldn’t matter anyway; it wasn’t as if his achievements before now had ever brought him pride or joy, why would this be different? </p><p>He doesn’t remember the date, just remembered it was cold. The wind was biting at his skin, on his hands and face, seeping into his clothes. He was wandering back alleys, looking for... <em> something. </em>Anything, to make him feel alive, even in the worst ways. </p><p>Kirei became drawn to a poorly made sign for a new bar and club. He had never had more than communion wine before in his entire life before this point. And this place was sketchy, like a new crew had just seized an old building that had been abandoned. Who knew what kind of place this would be? </p><p>That’s what made it perfect. </p><p>As he approached, loud and sensual music thumped out of the entrance at a volume where he couldn’t hear his own footsteps. He slipped in with a few others entering, as if he was part of the group. He hung back once inside, his eyes adjusting to the dim lighting. </p><p>The lights were tinged red, casting an almost bloody appearance on the patrons. A dance floor toward the center with writhing bodies, lights and shadows playing on their forms. At one end, the bar with bottles upon bottles of varying alcohols, none of which he could identify even if he was up close, with a very busy bartender. Beyond the dancefloor was a stage, currently empty but clearly set up for... some type of performance. He made a note of the hooks rooted in the ceiling above center stage. </p><p>He was aware of his clothes and general demeanor made him stick out like soot on a white dog, but there wasn’t anything to do about it now. He made his way through the shadows of the room, drinking in all of the sights, until he found himself at the bar.</p><p>“What can I do for you, <em> Father </em>?” </p><p>The title startled him at first, but he shrugged it off as he realized the connection that was made; his simple black vestments, the simple gold cross he had forgotten to remove. The bartender was smiling cheekily, her teeth stark white against the dark stain of lipstick. Her lipstick reminded him of blood. The comment was just made in jest. </p><p>If only she knew. </p><p>“Something strong, with spice,” Kirei answered, with the confidence of someone who has definitely had a mixed drink before. “Your choice.”</p><p>The bartender’s dark eyes looked him over again, as if judging what to give him based on his appearance. Then she set to work.</p><p>In a lowball glass with ice, she mixed two ounces of a dark auburn colored alcohol--whiskey, he caught on the label--and a fifth of another liquid that was thicker -- simple syrup, he would venture to say. Then she poured a tiny dash of clear brownish liquid in after, stirring it in the glass before passing it to him. </p><p>“Try this one on,” she asked. “It’s a <em> whiskey ember. </em>Simple but delicious.”</p><p>Kirei took the glass and tossed half of it back as if it were nothing. It burned his throat but he liked that. It was as she said; simple but delicious, sour and spicy all wrapped together. It didn’t make him happy but it was good enough to make him feel <em> something </em>. </p><p>He finished it without a pause, turning his attention toward the stage as the crowd on the dancefloor made a scene as if something were about to happen...</p><hr/><p>His reverie was interrupted as the bell at the door signalled someone was coming in. He stood up fully, adjusted the cross to sit properly and tightened the apron on his waist. </p><p>“Can I help you?” he asked without looking to see who it was. </p><p>“Kirei.” </p><p>Kirei snapped his head in the direction of his father’s voice. </p><p>And there he was, in the flesh, with all of his priestly cassock and grey hair. His aged face is stern and serious, but not without care for his son. Kirei steeled his expression into a neutral one, which wasn’t too difficult, and hid the red mark on his hand by tucking his hands into his apron pocket.</p><p>“Sir?” </p><p>They hadn’t spoken since Claudia’s death almost three years ago -- though, not for Risei’s lack of effort. Kirei had gotten as good at dodging his old man’s attempts at contact as he had been dodging his blows in combat training at an early age. However, he knew setting his cafe in Fuyuki for the proximity to his inspiration and origin of mapo fanaticism, where his father was stationed would, inevitably, lead to this. </p><p>“We need to talk, Kirei.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>title chapter is from the fate opening <i> to the beginning </i> by Kalafina, since it's... an opening and this is (admittedly boring) beginning. I'm trying my best here. I also took a gamble on how Miss Claudia killed herself since it's not mentioned other than she does it in front of him and was very very sick. </p><p>other characters are going to show up! there is kind of a plot but a very very loose plot. I also take requests for particular scenarios if you want *eyes emojis* and everyone place your bets as to who is going to win the Fourth Holy Grail War this year. I have one vote for Archer, one for Saber and one for Team Rider.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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